Tri-tip roast with boiling onions & pomegranate

Well, it just so happened that we had a pomegranate lying around when we saw this recipe for balsamic-braised boiling onions with pomegranate - and were intrigued. Not least because we were not familiar with boiling onions, but as they turned out be easily obtained, there was no stopping. We figured this would go nicely with a piece of roast meat and aimed for a marinated tri-tip.

Ingredients:
Tri-tip:
- 1 tri-tip roast
- 6 dried puya chilies
- 1.5 dL (2/3 cup) red wine vinegar
- 3 gloves garlic
- olive oil
- salt
braised boiling onions:
- 1 pomegranate
- 500 g (1 lb) boiling onions
- 2.5 dL (1 cup) chicken broth
- 1 dL (~ 1/2 cup) red wine
- 0.5 dL (~1/4 cup) balsamic vinegar
- 1 tbsp golden brown sugar
- salt & pepper
- 3 tbsp sour cream

The marinade was made in the morning: The dried chilies were cleaned (seeds removed) and soaked by bringing to a boil in water, turning of the heat and letting stand for at least 20 minutes. The soaked chilies were cut finely and mixed with mashed garlic, salt, red wine vinegar, and olive oil. The marinade was poured over the tri-tip and it was allowed to stand in the fridge for 8 hours.

After marinating the tri-tip was roasted in the oven at 175 C (350 F) for 45 minutes ... the result was a lot rarer than I normally aim for, although I'm not sure how much the red wine vinegar marinade could have contributed to the redness of the meat. At any rate, it was quite delicious, actually, perhaps the marinade did its part to tenderize the meat. Though, still I might aim for just a little bit more done next time around...Back to the the side dish of boiling onions and pomegranate (which was made while the roast was in the oven): First the pomegranate was cut open and seeds were collected and rinsed.

The boiling onions were blanched in boiling water for about 1 minute, then the outer layer was peeled off and the ends trimmed. The whole onions were sautéed in oil with salt and pepper till nicely brown (some 12 minutes). Then the chicken broth, red wine, balsamic vinegar, and golden brown sugar was added. After bringing to a boil, the heat was reduced and the pan was covered to let the onions simmer for 15 minutes. Then the cover was removed, heat was increased again and the liquid was concentrated to the thickness of a sauce. Finally the sour cream was mixed in and the sauce was coated on the onions before sprinkling pomegranate seeds on top.

This went VERY nicely with the meat.

The whole dish was served with quinoa on the side.